H160: Airbus’ Composite Helicopter

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H160: Airbus’ Composite Helicopter

A seriously cool Piece of Tech

Setting up a complex game of chair Tetris with its customers isn’t the only thing Airbus has been up to this year. Last month, the company’s experimental engineless aircraft completed its first successful flight to the edges of outer space. If that wasn’t enough to get you excited about Airbus, the French civil aircraft manufacturer has also been busy making something very cool in the composites world. This is the H160, the first ever, fully-composite civil helicopter.

A fully-Composite Helicopter

The composite made body as allowed for a much lighter air frame, while offering added resistance to corrosion and fatigue, and with less required maintenance time (and did we mention how cool this thing looks?).

So what makes this H160 helicopter so much better than the older models? Well, with over 60 different Airbus patents cooked into it, the H160 is a monster in technology. The helicopters Blue Edge® rotor blades allow for a payload increase of up to 100 kg. when compared to traditional models, all while reducing exterior noise levels by 50 percent.

At a cruise speed of 160 knots, the H160 will be able to carry passengers at a distance of up to 120 nautical miles for oil and gas missions, and a 450 NM range in public service or search and rescue tasks.

The H160 will be a fuel saver too, with Airbus using the new Turbomeca 1,00-shp Arrano engine, which touts reduced fuel consumption along with improved range and payload performance.

Arriving in your Skies soon

With its induction into service still a few years away (the H160’s service entry is planned for 2018) we still have plenty of time to work on our why Fiber Glast needs a helicopter presentation to our boss.